Enemies Foreign and Domestic: US Relations with Mormons in the US Empire in North America, 1844-1854

This dissertation seeks to explain the causes and events leading to the alienation of Mormons from the United States government from 1844 to 1854 in the context of American political and diplomatic history. This study demonstrates how foreign policy goals and partisan political concerns caused federal officials to negotiate with Mormons as a foreign, rather than domestic, entity. These interactions were based upon fear and misinformation on both sides and were colored by the overwhelmingly negative view of Mormons in popular US culture. It will examine the Mormons in their unique role as both conquerors and conquered in western North America, and how their religion, power, and politics prompted aggressive responses from federal, state, and local governments. This dissertation will add to the historiography of American continental expansionism and particularly to the understanding of Mormons in this process. It will discuss the formative years of the US/Mormon conflict in terms of American foreign relations and national policy. It provides a new interpretation of the Mormon Battalion. US efforts to force Mormon Americanization, and Mormon resistance to these efforts, characterized a conflict which lasted for decades. Early Mormon/US relations led to clashes between Mormons and the federal government for over half a century. The Mormons presented a special problem for the United States government. The Mormons had an American cultural heritage and were composed primarily of native-born white Americans. They were a group that was both foreign and domestic, one that was willing to unite with the United States, but unwilling to renounce practices deemed unacceptable by American culture. The Latter-day Saints\u27 American citizenship, nearly homogenous whiteness, and adherence to American culture presented a unique problem for the expanding United States empire. American officials were forced to establish a \u22Mormon policy.\u22 Unlike other ethnic and racial groups which were forced to deal with the asymmetry of power resulting from the American conquest of western North America, Mormons were mostly white, English-speaking Americans. Examining Mormon/US interactions reveals the limits to \u22Americanism\u22 and the extent to which religious and cultural nonconformity shaped federal leaders\u27 views of Mormons as an alien people and enemies of the nation

High Pressure X-Ray Diffraction Study of UMn2Ge2

Uranium manganese germanide, UMn2Ge2, crystallizes in body-centered tetragonal ThCr2Si2 structure with space group I4/mmm, a = 3.993A and c = 10.809A under ambient conditions. Energy dispersive X-ray diffraction was used to study the compression behaviour of UMn2Ge2 in a diamond anvil cell. The sample was studied up to static pressure of 26 GPa and a reversible structural phase transition was observed at a pressure of ~ 16.1 GPa. Unit cell parameters were determined up to 12.4 GPa and the calculated cell volumes were found to be well reproduced by a Murnaghan equation of state with K0 = 73.5 GPa and K' = 11.4. The structure of the high pressure phase above 16.0 GPa is quite complicated with very broad lines and could not be unambiguously determined with the available instrument resolution

Spin glass behavior in URh_2Ge_2

URh_2Ge_2 occupies an extraordinary position among the heavy-electron 122-compounds, by exhibiting a previously unidentified form of magnetic correlations at low temperatures, instead of the usual antiferromagnetism. Here we present new results of ac and dc susceptibilities, specific heat and neutron diffraction on single-crystalline as-grown URh_2Ge_2. These data clearly indicate that crystallographic disorder on a local scale produces spin glass behavior in the sample. We therefore conclude that URh_2Ge_2 is a 3D Ising-like, random-bond, heavy-fermion spin glass.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX, with 4 postscript figures, accepted by Physical Review Letters Nov 15, 199

Disorder-to-order transition in the magnetic and electronic properties of URh_2Ge_2

We present a study of annealing effects on the physical properties of tetragonal single--crystalline URh_2Ge_2. This system, which in as-grown form was recently established as the first metallic 3D random-bond heavy-fermion spin glass, is transformed by an annealing treatment into a long-range antiferromagnetically (AFM) ordered heavy-fermion compound. The transport properties, which in the as-grown material were dominated by the structural disorder, exhibit in the annealed material signs of typical metallic behavior along the crystallographic a axis. From our study URh_2Ge_2 emerges as exemplary material highlighting the role and relevance of structural disorder for the properties of strongly correlated electron systems. We discuss the link between the magnetic and electronic behavior and how they are affected by the structural disorder.Comment: Phys. Rev. B, in print (scheduled 1 Mar 2000

Specific Heat, Susceptibility and High-Field Magnetisation Experiments on Heavy Fermion UPt3 Alloyed with Pd

Specific heat, susceptibility and high-field magnetisation experiments have been performed on a number of pseudobinary U(Pt1-xPdx)3 compounds with x ≤ 0.30. For low Pd concentrations (x ≤ 0.10) the spin-fluctuation contribution to the specific heat is enhanced with respect to pure UPt3. For x ≥ 0.15 the spin-fluctuation phenomena are lost. On alloying, the anomalies present for UPt3 in the susceptibility at 17 K and in the high-field magnetisation at 21 T (at 4.2 K), shift towards lower temperatures and fields, respectively, and have not been observed in a compound with x = 0.15. Superconductivity has not been found down to 40 mK in a U(Pt0.995Pd0.005)3 sample

Superconducting and Magnetic Transitions in the Heavy-Fermion System URu2Si2

The intermetallic compound URu2Si2 can be classified as a heavy-fermion system because of its large linear specific-heat coefficient γ=180 mJ/mol·K2. Susceptibility, magnetization, and specific-heat measurements on single-crystal samples indicate both a magnetic phase transition at 17.5 K and a superconducting transition at 0.8 K. The magnetic and superconducting properties are highly anisotropic

Evidence of fatal skeletal injuries on Malapa Hominins 1 and 2

Malapa is one of the richest early hominin sites in Africa and the discovery site of the hominin species, Australopithecus sediba. The holotype and paratype (Malapa Hominin 1 and 2, or MH1 and MH2, respectively) skeletons are among the most complete in the early hominin record. Dating to approximately two million years BP, MH1 and MH2 are hypothesized to have fallen into a natural pit trap. All fractures evident on MH1 and MH2 skeletons were evaluated and separated based on wet and dry bone fracture morphology/characteristics. Most observed fractures are post-depositional, but those in the right upper limb of the adult hominin strongly indicate active resistance to an impact, while those in the juvenile hominin mandible are consistent with a blow to the face. The presence of skeletal trauma independently supports the falling hypothesis and supplies the first evidence for the manner of death of an australopith in the fossil record that is not attributed to predation or natural death